1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of medical apparatus, more particularly to blood pressure measuring and monitoring apparatus (sphygmomanometers), and still more particularly to pressure cuffs used with and/or are part of such blood pressure measuring and monitoring apparatus.
2. Background Discussion
Virtually every adult and even many children, at least in the United States, have had their blood pressure measured or monitored by the use of a blood pressure measuring and monitoring apparatus, such apparatus being called, in the medical profession, sphygmomanometers. Next to the taking of patients' or individuals' temperatures, the taking of blood pressure is probably the most common medical procedure, and is, in fact, often monitored in homes by individuals or their family members when the individuals suffer from such diseases as high blood pressure (often called hypertension).
Since an individual's blood pressure reading is ordinarily a quick indicator of the individual's condition, the taking of an injured or sick person's blood pressure is generally the first or one of the first medical procedures taken at the seen of an accident or the hospital, even when the individual's injury or illness does not seem to be severe. For instance, a low blood pressure reading may indicate unseen injuries and/or the onset of shock or heart problems, and high blood pressure may warn of a possible stroke. Accordingly, all paramedics and other emergency personnel are virtually always provided with blood pressure measuring and monitoring apparatus.
Blood pressure measuring and monitoring apparatus--sphygmomanometers--commonly used by paramedics and medical personnel consist of an inflatable, flexible sleeve, typically called a cuff, that is wrapped around a patient's arm, ordinarily above the elbow. A small, bulb-type hand pump is connected to the sleeve by a flexible air tube to enable the cuff to be inflated sufficiently to temporarily cut off blood flow in the arm beyond (below) the cuff. A common stethoscope is used to listen to the sound of blood flow in the patient's arm, the sound pick-up end of the stethoscope being positioned under lower regions of the cuff and over an artery in the patient's arm. Connected to the cuff, ordinarily through the hand pump, is a pressure indicating device, such as a mercury manometer or pressure gauge. The hand pump is used to pressurize the cuff until the flow of blood is cut off in the patient's arm; pressure is then slowly released from the cuff and the pressure at which the first sound of resumed blood flow (as determined by the stethoscope) is noted or recorded as the patient's systolic blood pressure. Pressure in the cuff is further reduced and the pressure at which the blood sounds first disappear is noted or recorded as the patient's diastolic blood pressure. To trained individuals, the measured systolic and diastolic blood pressures, ordinarily expressed as the systolic pressure over the diastolic pressure, are very revealing of the patient's condition and may indicate the need for life-sustaining treatment.
As stated above, virtually all injured individuals, whether injured in a vehicle or other accident, or a victim of a shooting, stabbing or beating, have their blood pressure immediately measured and/or monitored by medical personnel, often or usually paramedics, first arriving on the injury scene.
Often the injured individual or individuals whose blood pressure or pressures need to be taken are injured to the extent that some or even profuse bleeding may be occurring or may have occurred, and the individuals' arms about which the blood pressure cuffs have to be installed are bloody. With the ever-increasing prevalence of the AIDS virus (and other blood-borne, infectious diseases, such as hepatitis) in the population, exposure of one person to the blood of an injured or wounded person is a serious risk, especially considering the deadly nature of the AIDS virus.
Consequently, the presence of blood on injured individuals consequently poses a health hazard not only to paramedics and other health professionals treating injured or wounded individuals, but also to other injured or wounded individuals who have to be treated at the same scene of the accident or injury, for example, in the case of automobile accidents injuring more than one person, or shootings injuring more than one person.
The risk of AIDS infection from contact with the blood of individuals carrying the disease may be especially high in some inner-city regions where the incidence of prostitution is great and/or IV drug use is common--both of which are known to carry high incidence of AIDS and both of which tend to result in increased violence which leads to serious, bloody injuries, such as gun-shot and stabbing wounds.
It can, of course, be seen, for example, from television news programs, that medical personnel, such as paramedics, working on individuals that have open wounds where contact with the patients blood is likely or possible, wear disposable surgical gloves to protect their hands. In some instances, such medical personnel also wear partial face masks to prevent the inhalation or ingestion (through an open mouth) of blood or blood mist from an injured patient.
There is, however, the further interest, even in emergency situations, in protecting one injured individual from being contaminated by the blood of another injured individual. For example, paramedics may change their surgical gloves after handling one patient and before handling another patient. In addition, certain instruments, such as scalpels, may be set aside for sterilization and sterilized instruments used for a next patient.
One, possibly unrecognized, source for potentially contaminating one injured individual with the blood of another individual, in the case of open wounds, is the reuse of a blood pressure cuff that has come into contact with a first injured individual's blood. Since blood pressure cuffs are typically constructed of a rubberized fabric they are not subject to sterilization, at least in such emergency situations as an accident or disaster. Moreover, such blood pressure cuffs have heretofore, so far as is known to the present inventor, been too costly to be disposable after a single use.
Accordingly, there has now been invented an inexpensive, but effective, blood pressure cuff that can be disposable after a single use, and the risk of contaminating one individual by the blood of a previous patient, by using a contaminated blood pressure cuff, can thereby be eliminated. Moreover, such disposable blood pressure cuffs can be made sufficiently inexpensive that they may be routinely used and disposed of after a single use even in doctors' offices and hospitals where the risk of subsequent infection by the use of a blood-contaminated blood pressure cuff is ordinarily much less than in emergency accident or disaster scenes or in emergency hospital rooms. The use of such disposable blood pressure cuffs, even in non-emergency situations or where bleeding is present, provides an additional safety factor against the transmission of blood-borne diseases and protects not only patients on which the cuffs are used, but also protects doctors, nurses and hospitals against certain liabilities.